A Bronze Age settlement built on stilts that fell into a river “like a coffee plunger” after a catastrophic fire has provided a window into our past lives, according to the archaeologist who led the investigation of the Cambridgeshire site .
Must Farm, nicknamed Pompeii of the Fens, offers “exceptional clarity” due to a combination of charring and waterlogging, said Mark Knight, of the University of Cambridge’s archeology unit.
On Wednesday, two open access publications detailing the findings from the excavation at a working brick-clay quarry will be launched. Next month, some of the preserved objects will be displayed at Peterborough Museum in an exhibition telling the story of Bronze Age life in the short-lived settlement and its discovery almost 3,000 years later.
Dating from around 850 BC, Must Farm was only inhabited for about nine months before it was destroyed by fire. The round houses were built on stilts over a tributary of the River Nene. The cause of the fire is unknown. The speed at which it took off gave residents no opportunity to grab their most precious possessions. “It was get out or die,” Knight said.
As the round houses collapsed under the weight of their roofs, jewelry, pottery, clothing, tools, and even food cooked in pots fell into the muddy river below. Vegetation in the river cushioned their impact and prevented damage; the objects and the wooden structures of the roundhouses sank into silt.
“The residents have the [settlement], furnished it, moved in and established it. And then there was a massive, catastrophic fire. They ran for their lives and left everything behind,” Knight said.
The heavy roofs “fell like coffee plungers” and everything sank into the river below. “Lovely soft silt formed around those remains, and then meters of it developed over time before we came back to dig it out. The settlement was pretty much intact, apart from the people who lived in it.”
During the excavation in 2015-16, archaeologists recovered almost 200 wooden artefacts, more than 150 fiber and textile items, 128 pottery and more than 90 pieces of metalwork. More than 18,000 pieces of structural timber have been recorded.
Analysis of preserved food remains has shown that the settlement’s inhabitants ate meat stews, dumplings and bread, chops of pork and lamb, and – possibly – honey-drizzled venison. Personal items recovered include decorated textiles and exotic glass beads.
“Each of the structures was littered with axes, gouges, chisels, razors – a whole range of tools. There were glass and jet and amber necklaces. There was a real sense of a fully stocked household and people who were well provided for,” said Knight.
The settlement dates from the very end of the Bronze Age, when agriculture flourished. The inhabitants cultivated wheat and barley and kept sheep, cattle and pigs.
“We don’t have much to compare it to because this level of preservation is so exceptional,” Knight said. “Our understanding is that this is truly representative of what the world looked like in 850 BC, as opposed to an anomaly.”
More than 50 specialists – more or less equal to the settlement’s population – worked on the excavation for a year. The £1.1 million cost was met by Historic England and Forterra, the owners of the quarry.
Duncan Wilson, Historic England’s chief executive, said: “The discoveries made at Must Farm are truly astonishing. They have helped to broaden our understanding of life in the Bronze Age, connecting us directly to past communities and helping us to understand a way of life that was more sophisticated than we could imagine.”
